Improving Myself After Letting Go of Self-Interest and Sentimentality

(Minghui.org) I am a 62-year-old country woman. I’ve cultivated in Falun Dafa for more than 25 years. I feel it is my great honor to encounter Dafa. 

Cultivating Myself Amidst Handing Out Truth-clarification Materials

In 2020, the death toll of the CCP virus (a.k.a COVID-19) grew very fast, and the virus quickly spread throughout the world. At that time, my husband had gone away to take on labor work. I thought that I should help people learn the truth about Dafa, so I went out alone on my bicycle at 2 a.m. to put up truth-clarification sticky notes. 

In order to disguise my mission, I put a basket in the cart and pretended to be a mushroom picker. 

I had to travel a very long distance uphill. It was the middle of the night, and I was a woman pushing a bicycle alone. The deserted mountains were empty. There were no homes nearby, but there were woods everywhere, and the path was overgrown with weeds. I moved step by step, to save people. I didn’t feel any hardship, nor fear, as I had the Fa in me and Master to look after me at all times. 

If it were before I practiced Dafa, I wouldn’t have dared to take this road late at night by myself. I put up truth-clarification sticky notes as I walked. The sun was coming up as I finished and headed home. 

One time, a practitioner went out to clarify the truth and save people. The people she talked to said they saw the sticky notes that we put up on the bridges and that they were so colorful and beautiful, which cheered them up. Another time, a practitioner shared with me, telling me that people loved to see those sticky notes. I realized that it was Master using her to encourage me. 

Master published “How Humankind Came to Be” on January 20, 2023, which made my husband (also a practitioner) and me realize the importance of saving people. At night, we went out to put up the Dafa sticky notes and distribute truth-clarification materials. As soon as we got to one village entrance, a dog started barking and didn’t stop, but I continued to place a copy of our materials at every household. 

Before this, every time my husband and I teamed up to hand out truth-clarification brochures, I always chose easy places to do, i.e. where there were no dogs or only at households close to the road. As soon as I heard a dog barking, I’d leave, out of concern that I’d be seen by the homeowners. When my husband distributed the brochures household by household, he’d say to me, “Dogs barking, what are you afraid of? You have to get rid of your fear.” Thinking back, I always thought about my own safety, which came down to selfishness. I didn’t put saving people first. This time I changed, and I kept rectifying myself. I realized my shortcomings and no longer felt scared. 

My husband and I kept going and arrived at a village. We placed the materials household by household. As we got very deep into the village, dogs barked more and more. But my husband and I were not scared, nor did we panic, even though all the dogs in the entire village barked. Under Master’s protection, no one came out to stop us from what we were doing. In the end, we handed out all the truth-clarification materials we had. 

Every time I placed truth-clarification materials at a house, I was very sincere. I sent a thought to the sentient beings from deep down, “Please read them carefully! You need to treasure it! It’s our Master who gives you this opportunity to be saved. Please treasure it!” 

On our way back, I encountered another xinxing test. My husband walked so fast that I couldn’t keep up, and we had traveled so far that I was tired. In order to keep up with him, I had to run. My shoes had some sand in them, which hurt my feet with every step I took!

We walked like that for about a mile, but my husband never turned around to see where I was, or if I was able to keep up with him. Even though I was very tired, I didn’t have the slightest resentment towards him. I was enlightened that he was helping me to improve. So I recited Master’s Fa. It wasn’t until we were almost home that my husband slowed down. 

The process of improving my xinxing that night continued when I slept. I felt I couldn’t bear the pain I had from hemorrhoids, which kept me from sleeping. But at that time, I was enlightened: Master was cleansing my body!

Since then, my hemorrhoids, which tormented me for more than 30 years, are gone. Master saw that my xinxing improved and cleansed my body, eliminating it from the root. I witnessed Dafa’s beauty and miraculous nature once again. 

Letting Go of Self-Interest

My husband went to the city to do home renovation work in 2023. I went to cook for him and give him a hand. After I got there, I saw that he still had one side of a wall where he hadn’t yet put tiles. Then he realized there was something wrong with the tiles he had put up on the west side of the building. The tiles were not in line with those on the other wall, they were off by about an inch. 

My husband called the homeowner to come over to see what he’d say about it. After the owner came and took a look, he wasn’t picky and said he was fine with it. Then he asked my husband to carry on with the rest of the work and left in a rush to get back to work. I still felt insecure about it. Even though the homeowner didn’t say anything, I didn’t feel good about it. I told my husband to redo the work on the west side of the building. As both of us are practitioners, we should let go of self-interest. As a practitioner, one has to be altruistic. Master told us in the Fa to think about others first at all times. It wasn’t easy for the homeowner to buy a condo. If the line isn’t straight, when he or his family cooks in the kitchen later on, won’t they feel discomfort upon seeing it? 

My husband acknowledged my thoughts. I said: We shouldn’t leave any regrets for ourselves. You’ve been a mason all your life, and never made such a mistake. This can’t be accidental but rather is for us to improve ourselves and let go of our self-interest. 

So we began to tear off the tiles. Since they were tightly fixed to the wall, it took us quite a bit of effort to remove them with a hammer and chisel. I didn’t wear gloves, and the broken pieces were thorny and pricked my hands. We didn’t take a break the whole morning but kept working, soaked in sweat. We didn’t feel any hardship as we rectified our shortcomings. 

When the work was done and the homeowner was about to pay us, we deducted the costs of the extra tiles and materials used in the second application from the proceeds. In order to show his gratitude, the homeowner gave us a box of his homegrown grapes in return. 

Test of Sentimentality

I have two brothers. My older brother has never been close to me since childhood, whereas my younger brother was the opposite. After my younger brother saved some money from working in big cities for many years, he often bought me some gifts. He was also nice to our parents and took care of them. 

However, on the afternoon of August 4, 2023, my sister-in-law called me, saying, “My sister, I don’t know what happened to your brother. He is very ill and going through emergency treatment right now.” After hearing that, my husband and I took the bus to the city to see him. 

On our way, we got a call from her, telling us that he had just passed away. I could not hold back my tears, feeling great agony. I felt for him, suddenly leaving the world at such a young age. It was very hard for me to accept. 

At his funeral, I was still very sad and couldn’t hold back my tears. After I gradually calmed down a little bit, I could remember that I am a practitioner and have the mission of saving sentient beings. Upon seeing there were people at his funeral who hadn’t quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), I took this opportunity to clarify the truth to them. However, after his funeral was over, when I was at home alone, memories of him appeared in my mind. During those days, I always wanted to cry. I was in a state of sorrow, unable to smile. 

Later, Master enlightened me in my dreams that I had gotten stuck in the mud. Then I enlightened that I couldn’t continue like that anymore. One day, Master arranged for a local practitioner to come to my home to see me. When she saw that I cried again, she said, “As a practitioner, we shouldn’t easily shed tears.” 

This was a wake-up call! When I was young and lived a difficult life, I didn’t cry. After I began practicing, when I thought about Master from time to time, I became teary. When I felt grateful to Master, I also shed tears of gratitude. When I failed to pass a xinxing test, I cried. But I never shed tears for these things in life. Why was I doing so now? It was due to sentimentality that I shed tears and couldn’t pull myself out of it.

At that time, I became clear. Then I remembered what Master said, 

“You are unable to interfere with the lives of others, and neither can you control others’ fates, including those of your wife, sons, daughters, parents, or brothers. Can you decide those things?” (Lecture Four, Zhuan Falun)

I used my strong willpower to suppress this sentimentality, to not think about it. Then I began to recite the Fa, such as “On Dafa.” I recited it when I was riding my bicycle, or taking care of household chores. Gradually under Master’s empowerment, I snapped out of the sorrow of losing a close family member, and my xinxing elevated. As a practitioner, one has to have righteous thoughts in one’s heart. I only wanted to be kind, compassionate, and composed.

At this time it so happened that my sister-in-law’s nephew came to visit during his vacation. I’d never met him. After we greeted each other, I asked him where he worked. He said he served in the army. I asked him if he was a CCP member, and he acknowledged that he was. Then I asked him to quit the Party, to erase the evil pledge he made, and he agreed. I then clarified the truth about Falun Dafa to him, and told him about reciting the two phrases, “Falun Dafa is wonderful!” and “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is wonderful!” He listened attentively and acknowledged all of it. 

My sister-in-law’s niece worked at the court. At that time, her niece didn’t feel well and didn’t join our gathering at the cemetery. When she and I were together at my sister-in-law’s home, I took the opportunity to clarify the truth to her and helped her quit the Young Pioneers and Youth League. Meanwhile, I also warned her not to participate in persecuting Falun Dafa. 

Conclusion

In today’s materialistic society, it was Master who rectified our hearts so we would not drift along with the current. When I got stuck in the mud, Master benevolently gave me hints for me to improve. It was Master who didn’t want to leave me behind. Thank you Master!

As I looked inward, I still found many attachments to eliminate. For instance, my resentment was still very strong, I also had jealousy and other attachments. I will surely eliminate these attachments and be a qualified practitioner. I’ll walk well the final leg of my cultivation path, following Master into the period when the Fa rectifies the human world!